Musings of Justice
by NCISgirl1527
Summary: "They may have gotten convictions in both trials, but justice had not really been served."  Jack considers the meaning of justice, Schwimmer's dedication to the rules, Brunner's comments toward Serena, and the events of the day at the end of Bodies.


_**I never intended to enter the Law and Order fandom. It honestly never occurred to me as a possibility, but I saw Bodies yesterday and something about it just spoke to me. In the space of about ten minutes I had come up with three story ideas. This is the first one. I hope you like it. I am actually rather proud of it.**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Jack, Serena, Alex, Schwimmer, or Brunner**_

_**Spoilers: Bodies**_

Jack sighed as he fastened his briefcase to his motorcycle. Somewhere deep inside he knew that Serena was probably right. If Schwimmer had not cracked when confronted with all those crying parents, then the chances of a few days in a jail cell wearing him down were slim. Sure there was a chance that Schwimmer would give up on his beliefs and tell them where the bodies were, but somehow the more Jack thought about it, the more he doubted it, and some part of him respected that. Of course the part that wanted to know where the bodies were was much more persistent.

He considered for a moment what he would do in that position. Would he break attorney-client privilege or would he stay true to the rules of the legal system? It had been said that a person could never know how they would react in a situation until they were put into that situation. That was a lie. At least in this situation, Jack knew exactly what he would do. He would break the attorney-client privilege and tell all those grieving families, which girls were dead and which were still missing.

He wondered what that said about him as a lawyer. That would be what would be justice, and he would feel no remorse over breaking the confidentiality. Still it would risk breaking the system down. He thought back to what Serena had said to him. They had put the system on trial, and they had lost. Shaking that thought from his head, he tried to focus on something else, but somehow the case kept drifting back to the front of his mind.

It had been an unpleasant case for all of them, and he had known it would be from the moment that Jessica had come to him and presented her motion to be relieved. She had, as she had pointed out, worked with the scum of the earth and defended them to the very best of her ability. Yet there was something about this guy that had scared her into asking to be removed from the case. That in and of itself said a lot.

As the case had progressed, Jack had begun to understand what had terrified Jessica because he had watched it unsettle Serena. That had really bothered him. He did not like to see anyone target or threaten or harass his ADAs. He knew that to be woman in the prosecutors' office, which was still mostly a man's world, could not be easy. He also knew that, to get where Serena was, you had to deal with a lot of really bad people, and you had to be able to hold your own against them. That had never stopped him from being protective of his ADA's.

Today Brunner had made it very hard for Jack not to reach across the table and strangle the man with his bare hands. Especially when Brunner had told Serena he wished she had hailed his cab. The thought made Jack shiver slightly. The implications in that statement were clear. Brunner wished that he could have added Serena to the list of his victims. Then the way that the sick creep had pronounced Serena's name as if tasting something that he found delicious.

Jack had gotten himself and Serena out of that room as quickly as he could. Not because he thought Serena would do something stupid, but because he feared that if he stayed in that room much longer, knowing that Brunner was considering what he would have done to Serena, he, Jack, would lash out and jeopardize their case. Additionally, and more importantly, Jack had no way of knowing what Brunner would say next, but he knew that, whatever it was, Serena did not need to hear it. Nobody needed to hear something like that.

Again Jack tried to push the thoughts to the back of his mind, and again he succeeded only for a moment before another aspect of the case replaced them. This time his thoughts settled upon Timothy Schwimmer. As much as Jack despised the man for refusing to share the location of the victims' bodies, he also was intrigued by the man's dedication.

The system had been designed on the belief that everybody played by the rules, as Schwimmer had said. However there were few lawyers that Jack knew who would not push the envelope a little if that was what would achieve justice. Some did it more than others. He did it a fair bit, but he was far from the only one. Even the ADA attached to Special Victims Alex Cabot, who was one of the most principled lawyers Jack knew, had pushed the envelope more than once to get criminals off the street. That was just how the real world worked.

The system was flawed, what system was not, but today had seemed to highlight the options that were available when faced with a flaw. You could either make your own type of justice or you could hold true to the rules even if it meant justice slipped away. Jack paused for a moment realizing that splitting the reactions that way meant deciding who got to define justice.

In the end it did not really matter. The chips had all been played in today's trial, and Jack knew it. If Brunner decided to tell them where the bodies where at some point in the future, it would be of his own free will. There was nothing and no one who could force that information out of him or his lawyer.

They may have gotten convictions in both trials, but justice had not really been served. Locking up the killer did a lot of good, but locking up Schwimmer had never really been part of the plan. Jack had expected him to cave before it went that far. The one thing he really wanted in this case was for the locations of the victims could be revealed so that the parents and the siblings and the friends would know…would know if it was time to stop looking or if there was still hope. Jack sighed.

They had lost this one.

_**So what did you think? Again I liked it but I would love to hear what you thought…**_


End file.
